In a faded and patched blue coat, turned up with red, the bellman of Kinver appeared in the one long street of that small place -- if we call it a town we flatter it, if we speak of it as a village we insult it -- and began to ring outside the New Inn. A crowd rapidly assembled and before the crier had unfolded the paper from which he proposed reading, an ape of a boy threw himself before him, swinging a turnip by the stalk, assumed an air of pomposity and ingenious caricature of the bellman, and shouted: "O yes! O yes! O yes! This is to give notice that this 'ere evening, at six o'clock, at Stewponey, there will be a grand champion match at bowls on the green. The prize to be Bladys Rea, commonly called Stewponey Bla. I fancy the gentlefolk want a spree, and Cornelius Rea at the inn is going to marry again, and wants be rid of his daughter first. It's an ockard affair altogether, and not altogether what it ort to be; and so it has been settled as a mutual accommodation that there shall be a bowling match on the green -- and she's to go to the winner. That 's about it. O yes! O yes! O yes!"

Author Biography

Rev. Sabine Baring-Gould (1834 - 1924) of Lew Trenchard in Devon, England, was an Anglican priest, hagiographer, antiquarian, novelist and eclectic scholar. His bibliography consists of more than 1240 publications, though this list continues to grow. His family home, the manor house of Lew Trenchard, near Okehampton, Devon, has been preserved as he had it rebuilt and is now a hotel. He is remembered particularly as a writer of hymns, the best-known being "Onward, Christian Soldiers" and "Now the Day Is Over." He also translated the carol "Gabriel's Message" from the Basque language to English.